Netherlands – Over 2,500 Plug-In Electric Car Registrations In January

The Netherlands surprised us in January by reaching the mark of 2,500 registrations of plug-in electric cars (over 5% market share), which is the strongest result since December 2013 when a large bath of Mitsubishi Outlander PHEVs was delivered.

It seems that last month the same trick (in smaller scale) was done with the Volkswagen Golf GTE – 905 units and first place on the chart.

Together with 579 Outlander PHEV and 330 Volvo V60 Plug-ins, three plug-in hybrids accounted for over 72% of all the plug-in electric car registrations.

If we add the rest of plug-in hybrids, their lead is even more spectacular at roughly 84% of the plug-in electric car market.

The high ratio of plug-in hybrids to BEVs is mainly the result of a favorable set of incentives for them.

In 2014, the Netherlands had an unmatched 19,876 registrations of plug-in hybrids (two thirds of all the PHEVs registered in the EU that year) and in 2013 the number was 9,938.

Among BEVs, the electric smart with 174 registrations managed to take fourth place, while Tesla Model S with 110 took #6.

Combination of factors :
– Dutch people have usually only one car so it needs to fit all driving needs
– the infrastructure is there. but nobody seems to know it and it seems to kind of end at the border
– Dutch people tend to buy ‘holiday’ cars. It needs to tow, or fit a lot of cargo.
– so simply only a phev or a tesla fits.
– one more: environment concious people often don’t have a car at all, our public transport network is great!

I’ve had the fortune of teaching at a dozen Automotive technical schools in the Netherlands over the last 8 years. My company is also hosting a number of senior Automotive technical specialist this year that are currently finishing their studies in the Netherlands. As a culture the Dutch people are very concerned about their country as a large portion of it is below sea level. The educational system is part of the fabric and their tax system allows anyone, regardless of economic status, to gain a degree in their chosen field. Therefore they tend to be thoughtful, considerate, and well-informed when it comes to transportation. There is approximately three times the numbers of bicycles that are used on a daily basis as there are people. One might say how is that possible? Is someone riding 3 bikes at a time? The answer is they have a bike to get to the train station, a bicycle to travel on weekends for fun, and another bicycle if they are a family person with young children to ride on it with them. The United States, of which I am a citizen, although my last name is Dutch has a lot to learn from… Read more »